# Xiandao (仙道) – Open Source WAP RPG Engine

**A mobile MMORPG engine originally developed in 2004–2008, now open-sourced for historical preservation and technical education.**

## About the Project / 项目简介

"Xiandao (仙道)" is a classic WAP-based mobile MMORPG engine developed by Jing Li and his team including Qiang Li, Zhangyang Li, Pengcheng Zhu, Cheng Liao
between 2004 and 2008. It represents one of the earliest large-scale mobile online game infrastructures in China.

The game engine was originally written in **Pike 7.x**, and has now been successfully migrated to **Pike 9.x**, a powerful interpreted language based on LPC and C++. It features real-time multiplayer interaction, world-building, and a dynamic NPC system long before smartphones became mainstream.

> ? You could call it a **milestone** in China’s mobile game history — one of the very first to "eat the crab" (a Chinese expression for being a true pioneer).

During its time, Xiandao supported tens of thousands of players daily and pioneered several concepts now seen as standard in mobile RPGs:
- PvP war zones and guild system
- Text-based map movement across ancient China
- Server-side item drop calculations
- Story-driven NPC battles and quests
- Real-time chat with message queue prioritization

Today, we open-source this engine to:
- ? Share technical insights with modern developers
- ? Preserve early mobile gaming history
- ? Allow future enhancements and community exploration

This release includes source code, configuration samples, and documentation for deploying a working version.

? License: [MIT License](./LICENSE)

## Why Open Source Now / 为什么选择现在开源？

It's been 20 years since I first built this game engine with my team.

Today, I have decided to release the source code to the public — not only to preserve a piece of history, but to give new developers and dreamers the tools to build upon it. I hope this engine will continue to inspire creativity, serve as a foundation for new ideas, and evolve with the times.

With the release of Pike 9.0, we plan to adapt and enhance this codebase to fit modern standards. More importantly, we hope this code will live on beyond me — that one day, long after I am gone, it will still be used, modified, and celebrated by future generations of developers and game lovers.

> I built it with love. Now it's yours.

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距今已过去整整二十年。

我和我的团队曾倾注无数心血，开发出这款游戏引擎。感谢曾经付出的核心技术包括但不限于，李强，李章漾，廖诚，朱鹏程等等。今天，我决定将它开源，不仅是为了纪念我们在中国手机网游草创时代的探索，更是为了让更多开发者、爱好者有机会使用它、学习它、继承它、超越它。

随着 Pike 语言 9.0 的发布，我们已经成功将引擎从 Pike 7.x 迁移到 Pike 9.x，并不断优化代码以适应新的技术标准与时代需求。更重要的是，我希望在我死后，它依然可以被人使用、被人热爱，继续陪伴更多人的技术之路与游戏梦想。

> 我曾为它倾尽热爱，如今，它属于所有人。

如果要了解如何架设这个游戏后端服务器，请翻阅README.txt

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## Quick Start / 快速开始

### Docker Deployment
**5-minute setup with Docker:** [Quick Start Guide](./doc/QUICKSTART.md) | [5分钟Docker快速启动](./doc/QUICKSTART.md)

### Native Deployment
**Run directly with Pike 9 on Linux:** [Native Setup Guide](./doc/NATIVE_SETUP.md) | [Pike 9 原生部署指南](./doc/NATIVE_SETUP.md)